over the two plastic tubs of Christmas ornaments she’d stacked beside the stairs, waiting for the tree she planned to get this weekend. Daisy hurried after them, dumping her purse on the bottom step of the staircase leading up to the second floor, pulling off her hood and stuffing her gloves into her pockets.
She pushed her way through the semi-circle of barking dogs, put Caliban and Patch into a sit and picked up Muffy, her brave boy who had the most trouble following orders and greeting an unfamiliar visitor. If this was the potential tenant Pike Taylor had okayed for her, she wanted time to explain that her pack of dogs were looking for treats and tummy rubs, not the opportunity to take a bite out of a stranger. Daisy flipped on the Christmas lights over the front porch and made sure the dead bolt was engaged before peering through the window beside the door.
“Wow.” She mouthed the word, fogging up the glass.
The man standing on her front porch was hot, in a rugged sort of way. He stood six feet tall, give or take an inch. He wore a black stocking cap fitted tightly to his head and a beige coat that pulled at his broad shoulders and thick arms. With his hands down at the sides of his jeans and his legs braced apart, he stood there, unmoving. If it wasn’t for the puffs of his warm breath clouding around his gray eyes, she’d have thought him a statue, impervious to the cold. Daisy’s throat went dry at the inverse response of heat that could be nerves, or something decidedly more...aware...that he triggered inside her.
Not the fatherly figure she’d been hoping for. His face was a little too craggy to be handsome. The scars that peeked above the collar of his sweater and crept up his neck to the edge of his mouth and cheek to circle around most of his left eye, coupled with the stern set of his square jaw, added to his harsh look. She was certain Pike wouldn’t send her anyone she wouldn’t be safe with. Still, safe was a relative term. This guy didn’t project calm reassurance so much as he looked as though he could scare off anyone who glanced crosswise at him. Although he would fulfill the purpose of having a tenant, she wasn’t sure she’d be comfortable having a man like him in the house.
Still, if Pike said he was okay, she’d at least interview him.
She startled when his head suddenly tilted and his gaze shifted to her silhouette in the window. He’d caught her staring at him. He didn’t smile, didn’t wave an acknowledgement, didn’t react, period. He simply locked his gaze onto hers until she muttered, “My bad,” and hurried to atone for her rudeness. Muffy whined in her arms, and Daisy unbolted the door and opened it, leaving the steel-framed storm door secured between them.
The rush of heat she’d felt dissipated with the chill that seeped through the glass. “Hi. Are you here about the room to rent? I thought we weren’t meeting until after dinner.”
“Master Sergeant Harry Lockhart, ma’am,” he announced in a deep, clipped voice. “Are you Daisy Gunderson?”
Recognition and relief chased away her trepidation and she smiled. “Master Serg...? Harry? Pen pal Harry?” She plopped Muffy down between the other dogs, then unlatched the storm door and pushed it wide open. “Harry Lockhart! I’m so excited to finally meet you.” The dogs followed her out onto the brick porch and danced around their legs. Daisy threw her arms around Harry’s neck, pressed her body against his rock-hard chest and hugged him tight. “Welcome home!”
Welcome home?
Harry’s vision blurred as something gray and furry darted between his legs. A mix of squeals and barks blended with the deafening boom and shouting voices inside his head, and his nose was suddenly filled with the stench of burnt earth and raw skin.
One moment, the memories were there, but in the next, he blanked them out and focused on the here and now. His body was hyper-aware of the softness wrapped around him like a blanket, and the creamy chill of the woman’s cheek pressed against the side of his neck.
Daisy Gunderson was on her tiptoes hugging him. Bear-hugging him. Giving him a squeeze-the-stuffing-out-of-him kind of hug. What happened to polite introductions and handshakes? This wasn’t the greeting he’d expected. She wasn’t the woman he’d expected.
But when a woman hugged a man like that, it was his natural instinct to wrap his arms around her and...pat her back. He could hear his men ribbing him now, giving him grief over his lousy moves with the ladies the same way he gave them grief about staying sharp and keeping their heads down. He’d been short on this kind of contact for a long time. Months. Years, maybe. The instinctive part of him wanted to tighten his grip around her. A baser part of him wanted to reach down and see if the curves on the bottom half matched the ones flattened against him up top—or whether all that luscious body he felt was just the pillows of her coat squished between them. A different part of him, the part that was still fractured and healing, wanted to bury his nose in the sugar-cookies-and-vanilla scents radiating off her clothes and hair and skin, and let it fill up his head and drive out the nightmares.
Harry did none of those things. Although her scent was as sweet as he’d imagined, nothing else about this meeting was going according to plan. Dogs were barking. She was plastered against him. He patted her back again because he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to this welcome. After all, he’d never met Daisy in person before.
She started talking before pulling away. “This feels like a reunion between old friends. I just got home myself. A few minutes earlier and you would have missed me. What are you doing here?” She shooed the dogs into the house and grabbed his wrist, pulling him in, as well. “Sorry. I’ll stop talking. Come in out of the cold.”
He watched the little gray-and-white fuzz mop dart back and forth across the area rug in the foyer while the white terrier jumped over him with a yip of excitement when he got too close. Those dogs were wired. They needed a good bit of exercise to take some of that energy out of them.
After locking the thick mahogany door behind her, Daisy pointed to the little one. “Muffy, down.” Muffy? The long-haired one was clearly a dude, but he had to give the little guy credit for flopping down on his belly to pant until he got permission to go nuts again. “I can put them in their kennels if you want, but they’ll mind if you tell them to stay down. Make sure Patch is making eye contact with you and use your hand. He’s deaf. But smart as a whip. Jack Russells usually are. He knows several commands. Patch?”
She demonstrated a universal hand signal. The terrier sat, all right, but so did the Belgian Malinois. Who looked a lot like... That muscle ticked beneath Harry’s right eye as he slammed the door on that memory and focused on the dog with the graying muzzle. Poor old guy had lost a leg. But those deep brown eyes were sharp and focused squarely on him, as if awaiting a command. Maybe the dog recognized another wounded warrior. “Is he a working dog?”
“KCPD-retired,” she answered. “That’s Caliban. He lost his leg to cancer. I inherited him when his handler couldn’t keep him. Sorry about the mess. I’m in the middle of decorating for the holidays.” Daisy was moving down the hallway beside the stairs, which were draped with fake greenery and red bows tied along the railing. She swerved around a couple of plastic tubs and kicked aside little bits of melting snow with her low-heeled boots. “Stick to the runner and it won’t be slippery,” she advised. “Could I get you something hot to drink? Coffee? Cocoa? Are you hungry? I baked a ton of cookies last weekend.”
Did the woman never stop talking? He couldn’t even say hello, much less ask a question or explain the reason he was here. “That’s not necessary.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s cold. I’m
